The shock of white hair is thinner. Recent knee surgery prompts a stool for the singer’s comfort. And he quips, “You can bet when I stand up, it will be because it’s important!”

But the repartee with the audience is still there. And The Voice and The Vibrato are still there.

During a recent farewell tour stop in Carthage, music superstar Kenny Rogers was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame and 2,000 fans were treated to a 90-minute walk down his amazing six-decade career path.

Beginning with the New Christy Minstrels and First Edition, Rogers began with his early country/jazz hits “Just Dropped In,” “Ruby Don’t Take your Love to Town” and “Lucille.”

Working with producers such as Larry Butler, Lionel Richie and Barry Gibb, he struck solid gold with “The Gambler” and “Coward of the County,” both of which he sang and mentioned the movies and TV serials which followed. (Songwriter Don Schlitz says “The Gambler,” oddly enough, was not based on a true story, but purely fiction from his own imagination.)

As the crown prince of duets, Rogers launched into a musical memory series, accompanied by Carthage native and Reba protégé Linda Davis. His tells his first success came with Dottie West and the song “Every Time Two Fools Collide.”

Video screen images punctuated the performance as the Rogers-Davis duo powerfully sang “Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer,” “Lady,” “We’ve Got Tonight” and the always popular “Islands in the Stream.”

Pictures of Kim Carnes, Sheena Easton and of course Dolly Parton were flashed as the audience reacted to video clips that took us back to another time and place.

A re-recording of “Lady” with Richie must have gained the entertainer yet another generation of fans, as evidenced by the Carthage crowd, which filled the tiny town’s civic center to capacity.

In between songs, Rogers talked about his memoir “Luck or Something Like It.” But when listening to him, you realize he relied on some savvy business sense when he started in the music field.

Growing up as the fourth of eight children, Rogers discovered music in high school. But the family’s 1930s economic struggles taught him valuable lessons.

“I knew there were two ways to compete: Do what everyone else is doing and do it better or do something no one else is doing. That way you don’t invite comparison,” he said, “and that’s what I’ve tried to do.”

At age 79 and rearing twin teenage sons with wife Wanda, he admits his challenges as a father.

“We took our sons with us on tour to Africa, and I bought each a nice camera to use on the safari. (Rogers is quite a photographer in his own right.)

“Do you know what they came back home with?

“Selfies,’ he said, shaking his head, “no lions, no elephants, just selfies!”

As one of the best-selling music artists of all time, Rogers ranks in some pretty heady company: the Beatles, Garth Brooks, Elvis, Michael Jackson. And while the singer/songwriter has been very successful with country fans, his 120-plus hit singles also cross over into genres such as pop, soft rock and jazz.

The Houston native now lives in Georgia and has three grown children from four previous marriages.

Last year he launched “The Gambler’s Last Deal” farewell tour, which appropriately will end in Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena with Dolly, Reba, the Judds, Alison Krauss, Lady Antebellum, Idina Menzel and other guests on Oct. 25.

The Carthage concert concluded with “You Can’t Make Old Friends,” a recent recording with Parton.

Maybe or maybe not. There were a lot of friends – old and new – on a hot, humid East Texas night where the singer and the audience drew winning hands.